Israely Groove

Without much explanation, now is the right time to publish one of the most interesting mixtapes that I always wanted to share. It seems that the working musicians in the late 1960s in Israel were impressively connected to the sounds that had been made abroad, especially music from England and the USA. This time I’ll concentrate on a specific music genre. No music creator or performer from those times could ignore its emergence – Funk. It’s amazing to think about the fact that more than 40 years ago, a time when people didn’t have TVs (TVs weren’t used in Israel until 1968) let alone the internet, not to mention the telephone. As far as I know, there were only 2 or 3 Israeli radio stations where a chunk of broadcast time for non-Israeli Pop music was something about 10%. Still, musicians who were hungry for new music succeeded in getting some updated records from abroad, and thereafter, new music instruments and sound effects fulfilled their visions.

Pay attention to the superb playing, the arrangements and orchestrations. Even if the archaic singing style could sometimes irritate, or, in a better situation, sound funny, still the groove exists. Don’t expect to hear some authentic James Brown type of Funk, but the influences are there.

You can find here some pearls I discovered later, some of them are even rare. I hope that you be able to ignore the problematic quality of some of the tracks – at least half of them were converted from old vinyl records and reel to reel tapes that I own. Some of them didn’t survive time with the optimal conditions. Two of them recorded were recorded from an AM frequency radio. Anyway, I did my best to clean and restore in a way that everything will integrate to one tasty ‘nugget’.